State's Top Court Asked To Remove Cook Judge

December 23, 1999|By Ken Armstrong, Tribune Legal Affairs Writer.

The Cook County Bar Association filed a petition Wednesday asking the Illinois Supreme Court to remove a Cook County judge accused of failing to disclose an Appellate Court's findings of misconduct on his judicial application.

"It's a drastic step, but I think we have drastic circumstances here that require us to do everything possible to get this man off the bench," said William Hooks, the bar association's president.

When John J. "Jack" Hynes, then an assistant Cook County state's attorney, applied in December 1998 to be an associate judge, he did not disclose that two murder convictions had been reversed by the Illinois Appellate Court in 1991 because Hynes had discriminated against African-Americans during jury selection.

Nor did Hynes subsequently amend his application to reflect that the Appellate Court had, in a separate case, also reversed another murder conviction because Hynes discriminated during jury selection. That ruling was issued on Sept. 30, two weeks before Cook County's Circuit Court judges elected Hynes to the bench.

Last month, the Tribune detailed those appellate rulings and Hynes' failure to disclose them.

In its petition, the Cook County Bar Association, the oldest African-American bar in the country, asks the Supreme Court to exercise its supervisory authority over the state's judiciary by removing Hynes from the bench. The complaint cites Hynes' "egregious, racist jury-selection tactics" and his failure to disclose the Appellate Court findings.

The complaint also chastises the explanations that Hynes has previously offered for not disclosing the rulings, calling them "insults to common sense and even subnormal intelligence."

Hynes could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Both the Cook County Bar Association and the Chicago Council of Lawyers already have filed disciplinary complaints against Hynes with the state agencies that investigate alleged misconduct by lawyers and judges.

R. Eugene Pincham, a former Illinois Appellate Court judge, is representing the Cook County Bar Association in its effort to have the Supreme Court remove Hynes. He and Hooks said they knew of no other case in which the Supreme Court has taken such action.

"There's no precedent for it, because there's no precedent of a judge lying to get on the bench," Pincham said.

Cook County Circuit Judge Leo Holt joined the bar association's petition asking that Hynes be removed.

Last month, Cook County Chief Circuit Judge Donald O'Connell issued a strongly worded statement that stopped just short of asking Hynes to step down, saying Hynes "must consider whether the public perception in his ability to be fair and impartial has been so eroded that his judicial service will be compromised."